This site provides a guide to what the problems are, and what solutions we know to be effective. It is based as far as possible on reliable sources: peer-reviewed scientific publications, higher-level peer-review bodies such as the IPCC, and good-quality journalism and blogs. It also expresses a certain degree of editorial opinion, occasional sarcasm, and possibly humour. Because we're all human.

Health Warning:

It can feel overwhelming to think of the problems we face. We may despair and sink into apathy, or be propelled into frantic action and burn ourselves out. Neither helps. We need to look after ourselves and look after each other in order to look after our environment. Especially for those of us with mental health issues. Let us talk to our friends, our families, neighbours, and to people in our communities (In Real Life or online). Let's check how others are doing, and listen to each other.

It's also good to eat healthily, to get exercise, to make music, poetry, art, and love; to do things that bring joy into our lives, and into each other's. Let's have fun! Self-care is not selfish!!

Do the activism that moves you.
For some of us it may be getting ourselves arrested at a Non-Violent Direct Action. For others it may be getting informed about the science and sharing it with others. Some can give financial support. Some can provide tea and biscuits. Some may have skills or resources to offer — technical, organisational, legal, artistic, social. Some may just offer encouragement. Let's all do what we can!

Learn from history.
Humanity has already made incredible progress in tackling humanitarian and environmental problems. In the space of less than an average human lifetime billions of people have been raised out of poverty, famine which would have starved millions has been averted, and political and environmental crises which could have wiped out billions of us have been defused. We don't hear about these things because good news doesn't make headlines. Knowing what we have already achieved gives us an idea of what we are capable of doing to tackle the present crisis. We already have powerful resources for dealing with the problems we face; we need to organise ourselves socially, politically, and economically to use them.

Don't Panic!
With all due respect to the awesome Ms Thunberg, any firefighter will tell you that if your house is on fire, panic can be fatal. We need to act swiftly, intelligently, and effectively, but with clear heads.

What's the problem?

Climate change (aka Anthropogenic Global Warming – AGW) is caused mainly by increasing Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, although Methane (the main component of Natural Gas) and other "greenhouse" gases also play roles. The extra Greenhouse Gases responsible for dangerous climate change are the result of human activities; mainly burning fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) and biomass (e.g. wood) without capturing the CO2 produced, and from agricultural activities such as clearing forests for growing food, and ploughing and degrading soils, which releases carbon from micro-organisms underground.

What's the solution?

To tackle climate change we need to reduce CO2 emissions to practically zero, as quickly as possible, and to remove some of the excess CO2 we've already released into the atmosphere.

To do this we need to replace unmitigated fossil fuels with sustainable energy sources for producing electricity, for running cars, buses, trucks, trains, shipping and aeroplanes, for heating and cooking, and for use in industry, especially producing steel, cement, and fertiliser.

It helps if we can reduce our usage of energy; by using the energy we need more efficiently e.g. in in better designed vehicles, or using less of it for example by insulating buildings better, travelling less, using less energy-intensive materials in construction, etc.

In order to actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere we can grow more plants, especially trees, which lock up carbon in their bodies, and improve soils which take up carbon into micro-organisms. It is also possible to harvest and burn plant material, capturing CO2 released in combustion and sequestering it in various ways, such as pumping it into underground caverns from which natural gas was extracted. Then more plant material can be grown on the same land to take up more CO2. There are also mechanical/chemical processes being designed which pull CO2 directly out of the atmosphere.

invest in research and development of improved agricultural technologies and practices for reducing carbon-intensive inputs to, and releases of greenhouse gases from agriculture,

improve energy efficiency standards in building construction, and invest in replacing our worst buildings and improving the performance of the rest,

improve town planning to reduce the need for vehicular travel and to encourage lower-energy forms of transport such as walking and cycling.

The Human Problem

We have a technical problem, for which we have various solutions. Some are more effective than others, but there isn't any one single solution: we have a serious problem and we need to use all the tools at our disposal to tackle it.

But we also have a human problem: for various reasons our brains are ill-equipped to understand, and to react effectively to our environmental problems. We are much better at reacting to threats which occur quickly, such as wars and sudden natural disasters, than to this issue which has been building slowly for decades, with (so far) no point at which it has suddenly tipped into an obvious world-wide emergency. Our minds are skilled at rationalising away disturbing evidence of the catastrophe which we are currently heading for, and most of us are in some sort of denial, whether it's the outright denialism of Trump and much of the political right or the more subtle denialism implicit in green/left groups' rejection of solutions found to be necessary by the IPCC and other experts. Even amongst activists in groups such as Extinction Rebellion few are prepared to risk arrest - one of the organisation's chief tools for trying to achieve its aims - or to give up secure jobs or careers to further the cause.

None of the above is a matter of blame or shame; rather it is an observation of our shared human psychology, and shows that we need to use the sciences of psychology and science communication, and the insights and tools of economics, as well as technical and engineering solutions to tackle our problems.

Human Solutions

There are various ways we can tackle the human psychological and political problems:

Science Communication: some people simply lack information on climate change and mitigation, whilst others have entrenched opinions which are resistant to change. There is a developing science of Science Communication which tries to find how we change our minds from prejudices to facts.

Political action: there are various ways of influencing and changing public policy e.g. lobbying political representatives, school strikes, Non-Violent Direct Action, mobilising Trades Unions and religious groups.

Economic action: the more prosperous we are the more economic power we can exercise, which we can use through our investment choices, boycotts etc.

A list of all the articles on this site can be found here (where names in italics are redirects to other pages).
Many pages are currently just collections of links on a subject. This site is run on a shoestring and collaborators interested in developing this resource would be welcome: you can email us via our contact page.

This wiki is a companion to the Science for Sustainability facebook group